


Evangelos

by pelinal



Category: Dragon's Dogma
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 05:40:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18565057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pelinal/pseuds/pelinal
Summary: "I thought at first it was a little crowd of animals huddled together, but no. It was a lion cub with big, shining eyes, and on its back a young goat, and in place of a tail a small snake wriggled. It was a baby chimera.'This is Evangelos,' said Lazaros, looking at the baby chimera with an expression full of love."A friend from Icaro's past, and a look inside the mind of a chimera.





	Evangelos

From the journals of Ikaro Papadimou (Icaro of Cassardis, as she has come to be known to the people of Gransys)—

_I found Lazaros again! Lazaros Massounac, from the village. Better put, he found me. Me and Iqbal were wandering the city, trying to decide what to do with this pouch of money which was more than I had ever seen or held (I sold a hydra's fang to that merchant with the Melois name, and Iqbal says he short-changed me, but it was still so much money!)_

_Anyway. I was cut up and impatient and in a terrible mood, and I ran headfirst into somebody, and that made me want to cry. The stranger held his hand out to me. I wasn't looking at his face until he spoke: "You're a ways from home, little minnow." Then I looked up at him, and I saw his glasses and the big mole on his cheek. Lazaros!_

_I must have just gaped at him, because he grinned at me and said: "Did the sea-witch take your tongue, Ikaro?"_

_"No," I said. Then: "Not a sea-witch and not my tongue."_

_~~He went pale~~  No, he didn't go pale, that's a thing people say, but he didn't go pale, we Cassardi are too dark for that. But his eyes, which already looked big behind his large wire spectacles, widened. "I. . .The talk I've been hearing today, about the Arisen who slew a hydra at the Encampment. . ."_

_I wished I still had the hydra's tooth, I would have waved it in his face to prove my point. "I don't have a heart, Laz. I don't have a heart."_

_He cursed—not a vulgar word, but a terrible village curse which I can't write here or my priest father's ghost will give me a lashing—and then he said "here, why don't we take this to the inn. You can tell me everything over a drink."_

_"I want a spiced honey ale," I said, still forcing back tears. "Do they sell them here?"_

_"We'll find something." Then he turned to Iqbal and said "How terribly rude of me! Lazaros Massounac." He made a sweeping bow and took Iqbal's hand._

_"I am called Iqbal," said Iqbal plainly. "I am here to assist the Arisen."_

_"Ah, a pawn!" said Lazaros in the tone which only Lazaros can have, a tone of pure interest. None of the strange manner that people take when speaking to pawns. I was glad. "Charmed to meet you, Iqbal. It lightens my heart to know my little cousin is in your. . .capable hands."_

_What I said next, I said to Lazaros in the village cant which is technically a form of Common, but very difficult for outsiders to understand. This was because I was embarrassed._ "That's enough of your flirting," _I told him._

"I'm being friendly, my Ikaro, that's all. Harmless pleasantry," _he said back to me in the same cant._

_"I cannot understand this language," said Iqbal._

_"As well you don't," I said, my face burning._

_Lazaros laughed. "My dear pawn friend, you must excuse Ikaro. She is so delicate, and so easily flustered. . ."_

_"I am not!" I squeaked, thumping him in his side, and he laughed again and brought us to the inn._

_He told me (over a honey ale!) that when he left the village years ago, he made for the city to make of himself a sorcerer. And he did this with much success, and he wrote new magicks that would allow a man to commune and hear the thoughts and feelings of the creatures of Gransys. Other demesnes too, I suppose. And he spoke with many animals, hearing their woes, and he helped them as well he could._

_One day, while out wandering the wilds, Lazaros came across a chimera. And he tried to make himself known to the chimera, but the exchange of thoughts confused and frightened the beast, and the magicks of Lazaros were not enough to calm it, and so he was left with no choice except to kill it. He wept deeply as he was saying this._

_He said: "Do you know, Ikaro, what it is to be a chimera? You are three souls, bound together as surely as sandalwood logs bound to make a raft. Different souls, but together all the same. Like twins, and closer than twins. Like three inseperable brothers. Think of it then, think of what it is for a chimera to be killed. You cannot kill it with one fell blow. You must sever the head of the snake, and the head of the goat, and finally the head of the lion._ Think _, then, what it is to be the lion! Think of feeling your brother snake's head sawed or scorched away, and feeling the vitality go from his carcass. Think of the screams of your brother goat and finally the heaviness of his dead legs atop yours. Think what it is to shoulder the weight of your two disappeared souls, desperately alone, your mind broken in three directions. You are only waiting for the final blow to kill you, too."_

_I did not understand him, but I understood that to have witnessed this death from inside the mind of the beast had grieved my friend, grieved him beyond measure. Even Iqbal had a troubled look about him. But I could not help wondering._

_"You killed a chimera? Alone?"_

_He looked at me impatiently, as though I had missed the point of his story. "I have seen tougher fights." But the easiness with which he said this filled me with admiration. I thought that Lazaros must have become a very powerful sorcerer indeed in the years since I had seen him._

_Iqbal said what I had been thinking. "A chimera. . .is not easily killed, master Massounac."_

_Lazaros froze at the title of 'master' in exactly the same manner I always do. But he smiled through his tears and said "Perhaps not all of us are blest with strong bodies. . .chiseled by the Maker's hands. But I assure you, master Iqbal—" this I thought was very witty of him, "—I am far stronger than I look."_

_I understood Iqbal's hesitation, because Lazaros is very thin and frail-looking. But he has an iron mind, and the mind is the weapon of a mage. I trusted in him._

_Then Lazaros said: "I want to show you something, cousin." He turned to the inn-keeper. "Loveliest Asalam, tell me you'll suffer me to bring my little ward inside the inn today."_

_"As long as he doesn't_ bite _any of my patrons," said the inn-keeper, in a tone suggesting that, whoever and whatever Lazaros' little ward was, he had bitten the inn-keeper's patrons many times before. However, Asalam was smiling, as people always do in the company of Lazaros._

_Lazaros promised. He bade me and Iqbal wait, and minutes later he was back, and following at his heels was the strangest little creature I had ever seen._

_I thought at first it was a little crowd of animals huddled together, but no. It was a lion cub with big, shining eyes, and on its back a young goat, and in place of a tail a small snake wriggled. It was a baby chimera._

_"This is Evangelos," said Lazaros, looking at the baby chimera with an expression full of love. "I found him on my way back to Gran Soren, after the encounter with the chimera."_

_"I have never seen such a young chimera," said Iqbal._

_Lazaros grinned as though Iqbal had revealed to him the punchline of an excellent joke. "Nor had I! And, to my knowledge, neither has anyone else. I consider him a gift from the Maker. A path to my atonement." He tapped a finger to his large forehead in a gesture of blessing. "A cub, and a kid, and a snakelet all together as one. I call it a kiblet."_

_"Evangelos," I said, smiling at my friend. I smiled because the name is Cassardi and means something like "bringer of good tidings"._

_Lazaros smiled back at me. I looked at the kiblet, Evangelos, and decided that he was really very cute._


End file.
